Labour Party offices in the South Hams have hit back after Dr Sarah Wollaston claims a coffin designed to highlight deaths caused by Conservative cuts to the NHS was “deeply offensive and upsetting”.

The coffin, which was part of a protest over the weekend in Totnes by Save Our Hospital Services and the Totnes Constituency Labour Party, was covered in posters saying “cuts cost lives”, and the Totnes CLP said “the message was clear”.

Dr Wollaston tweeted: “...beyond belief that local activists sadly including @TotnesLabour with Front Bench endorsement, thought it just fine to leave a ‘coffin’ waiting for me outside my surgery on Saturday. I found it deeply offensive and upsetting but presume that was the intention.”

Helen Beetham, Save Our Hospital Services and Totnes CLP, however, said that the ‘coffin’ was “at no time left outside the Conservative Party headquarters”. She said: “a cardboard sign in the shape of a coffin was left briefly outside the Conservative Party headquarters while the rally sang carols and Christmas songs and delivered a card to staff at Totnes Community Hospital.

“The point the sign was intended to make is abundantly clear from this photograph. At no time was Sarah Wollaston present inside the building - as we knew very well - and it is utterly false to suggest that any personal threat to her was intended or could have been understood from this notice.

“This was a friendly, welcoming march, with many healthcare workers, older people and children, including my own, involved, a bed push with presents and a Santa Claus, bulb planting, carol singing, and a thank you card presented to healthcare workers at our local hospital.

“The march was [monitored] by our lovely local policeman Jason and two community liaison officers who were standing on the corner by the Conservative Party at all times, not in order to protect it from the dangerous hordes but in order to protect marchers from the traffic.

“They, and we as stewards, can absolutely guarantee that nothing was left outside the Conservative Party headquarters, there was no abuse or even name-calling. The march was entirely good humoured at all times.”

Gerrie Messer, Labour Parliamentary candidate for Totnes, said: “Dr Wollaston’s accusations towards Totnes CLP are completely masking the intentions of the 300+ people in attendance at the rally on Saturday.

“At no point during the demonstration was a coffin effigy left outside her office.

“Whilst carol singing outside the Conservative Club, in the presence of a police officer and community liaison officers, a board in the shape of a coffin was displayed outside the club. The board drew attention to the 120,000 deaths attributed to the Government’s Health and Social Care spending cuts.

“The event was aimed at the NHS and the Government. Dr Wollaston was not in her office and the protest was not directed at her. Dr Wollaston could take some responsibility for the 213 beds we have already lost recently, alongside ambulance cuts as the chair of the Health Select Committee - which people feel she has not spoken out about enough.

“Her voting record is very different to the statements released on her behalf.”

A report released by British Medical Journal in November 2017 links Conservative austerity with 120,000 avoidable deaths.